Genesis 23:1-24:14

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, currently in the Book of Genesis. We’re calling our study “In the Beginning” because Genesis goes all the way back to the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. And I love the Book of Genesis because it starts to answer some of the really big questions human beings have been asking for a long time. Where did everything come from? Is this all just a big accident or was it designed and created specifically with all of its intricacies, with all of its beauty and order and power and majesty? And what does it mean to be a human person? How can we as human persons that were created in the image of God live in accordance with that image of God that’s been planted within us?

These are great questions and today we’re picking up in Genesis chapter 23. We’re going to call this study “Strangers and Sojourners.” I think the reason we’re calling it that will become evident to you pretty quickly as we dive into this. But this is heading toward now the end of the Abraham and Sarah narrative, which runs really from Genesis chapter 12 all the way through chapter 25. And the life of Sarah is going to be coming to an end here in chapter 23. So, I want to prepare you for that. Let’s dive in right now. We’ve just come back from chapter 22 where God tested the faith or proved the faith, if you will, of Abraham. Abraham and Isaac and their two young men, they went back and they’re in Beersheba. As we pick up in chapter 23 verse one, here’s what we read:

“Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah.” By the way, she’s the only woman in the entire Bible that we hear numbers about her age on. And she’s a significant woman of faith and just a powerhouse in a lot of ways. Not perfect, just like Abraham, but quite a story since Genesis chapter 12. And here we come to where the narrator tells us that 127 years of life, she’s going to pass from the scene. “Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.”

What a precious and intimate moment that must have been. And he may or may not have been right there when she passed. He may have been in Beersheba, she’s in Hebron, but they had so many flocks and so many cattle and all of that, one could easily understand why he might be some 26 or 27 miles away trying to help tend to or care for their business. But he comes back, and he finds that she’s passed, and he goes in, and he just weeps. His heart is broken. This woman that he shared so much with, and she with him, now passing away and he’s cut to the quick. He’s mourning and he’s weeping. The first time that’s mentioned in our Bible is right here as well.

“Abraham rose from before his dead wife and he spoke to the sons of Heth saying, ‘I am a stranger and a sojourner among you. Give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight’ And the sons of Heth answered Abraham saying to him, ‘Hear us my Lord. You are a mighty prince among us, bury your dead in the choicest of our graves, none of us will refuse you his grave for burying your dead.’ So Abraham rose and bowed to the people of the land, the sons of Heth, and he spoke with them saying, ‘If it is your wish for me to bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and approach Ephron, the son of Zohar for me, that he may give me the cave,’” The word give there could be translated sell just as easily. In other words, I’d like that to be my option, the cave of Machpelah which he owns, which is at the end of his field for the full price. He’s not just asking for it to be given to him. He wants to pay for it.

“’Let him give it to me for the full price in your presence for a burial site. Now, Ephron was sitting among the sons of Heth and Ephron the Hittite.” This is why we think that these folks are a group of Hittites that have perhaps migrated along the marketing roads and the business roads in ancient Canaan land there. And so, he is sitting among the Hittites. “…and he answered to Abraham in the hearing of the sons of Heth even of all who went in at the gate of his city saying, ‘No, my Lord, hear me. I give you the field, I give you the cave that is in it, in the presence of the sons of my people. I give it to you. Bury your dead.” Abraham bowed before the people of the land.” That’s the second time that’s been said. Notice his respect and all that he’s showing to them. “And he spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land saying, ‘If you will only please listen to me, I will give the price of the field, accept it from me that I’m a bury my dead there.’”

“Then Ephron answered Abraham saying to him, ‘My Lord, listen to me, a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver, what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.’ And Abraham listened to Ephron and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, 400 shekels of silver.” Commercial standard and this is before you start thinking to yourself how great and generous Ephron the Hittite is. He’s the one that named the price first. And we’ll see, I’ll share some other examples from Scripture that we know, typical purchases of real estate. This seems a bit exorbitant. He’s kind of taking advantage of the situation. “Ephron’s field, which was in Machpelah, which faced Mamre, the field and cave which was in it, and all the trees which were in the field that were within all the confines of its border were deeded over to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the sons of Heth before all who went in at the gate of his city.”

And believe it or not, this is the very first and only bit of land that Abraham will own in the promised land that God has actually walked him through and said, “See all this land, this is all going to be yours and your descendants and you’re going to have a progeny. You’re going to have a number of descendants that will be as the number of the stars, the number of sands in the seaside.” And so, this is the very first little bit of land, the promised land that he’s actually realized, and it’s just going to be a cave. It’s just going to be a tomb basically with a field in front of it. And they were deeded over. So, it becomes a formal real estate transaction and it becomes his in front of all of those who went in and out of the gate of the city. The gate of the city would be, a place where a lot of the business transactions were done.

A lot of judicial judgements or cases are settled there. “And after this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife in the cave of the field at Machpelah facing Mamre.” Again very specific, the narrator is, to tell us where, which direction it faces. And that’s one of the reasons why this particular site appears still. Everybody that does the work of archeology seems to feel like they know exactly where this is. It happens to be underneath of a mosque in Hebron and so it’s under control in such a way that we can’t visit it. But the idea is that this is one of those sites though that has a lot of credibility because of all the specificity in terms of its location, almost the GPS coordinates for it right here.

So the field and the cave that is in it, were deeded over to Abraham for a burial site by the sons of Heth. And as I said when we last left off, we’ll see if we can pick up a couple verses in chapter 24 in a minute. But just want to make a couple points from this. When we last left off, Abraham was in Beersheba, as I say, 25 to 30 miles away from where Sarah was. Sarah, who has mentioned 39 times in the Bible, again, the only woman whose age is mentioned in the Bible, married to the same man apparently for close to a hundred years, it looks like here. Probably one of the reasons she’s listed in the hall of fame of faith in Hebrews chapter 11.

The negotiations for the cave here at Machpelah, a little more complex than is obvious, really. The average worker or artisan at the peak of their career back then would only be making 10 shekels per year and might not even make 400 shekels in their lifetime. Later in the Bible we read that Amri bought the entire site of the ancient city of Samaria for just 6,000 shekels. David bought the entire site of where the Jerusalem Temple Mount goes or would go for just 600 shekels of gold. And so, a shekel was a weight, a measure of weight, whether it’s gold or silver or whatever it might be. Much later in Old Testament history, after David, Jeremiah bought himself a field for just 17 shekels of silver.

And I know location, location, location, I get it. But the idea is that for Abraham to pay 400 shekels of silver for what amounts to be a field and a cave of some insignificance doesn’t really appear to be one of those kind of financial moves that sets him up to be this gigantic real estate magnate or something. He just wanted to bury his sweet wife there, and he will be buried there as well. As a matter of fact, Isaac and Rebecca will be buried there. As a matter of fact, Jacob and his wife Leah will be buried there. And as a matter of fact, Joseph at the end of Genesis will be buried in that very same cave, this first bit of the promised land that’s realized and owned by one of God’s people.

But this chapter is about more than the purchase of the cave, isn’t it? And it certainly begins with this idea of Sarah passing away. It’s not the first death that’s mentioned in the Bible, however, it’s a very significant one. And we have walked a long way together with Abraham and Sarah. We’ve walked together with them as God called them out of Ur of the Chaldees and called them to get moving. He said, “You’re going to be going to a place I will show you.” In other words, he hadn’t given them the destination, but he just told them to get moving. And that’s the way obedience to the Lord often is, isn’t it? When we’re moving in faith, we get moving and the Lord often reveals along the way as we’re obeying Him, as we’re responding to Him, He continues to unfold and unveil before us what His plans really are for us. I love the way G.K. Chesterton said it once,

“Men can always be blind to a thing, so long as it is big enough.”
G.K. Chesterton

And I don’t know about you, but I kind of love the tenacity of truth in our world, the resoluteness of reality in our world. And while I’ve bucked, I’ve fought against it myself. And of course our entire culture appears to have gone nuts, off the rails, intellectually confused, morally bankrupt in every way. But I got to say as I look back through history and this account some 4,000 years of history, I really start to see the tenacity of God’s truth and the resoluteness of His reality. Though creation is now under the curse, and it is broken, it’s groaning and you can almost hear it groaning for the renewal of all things, as the apostle Paul would talk about later in the New Testament.

So, what do we learn here though? What could some of the highlights of chapter 23 be? If we’ve got enough time, I’ll jump into chapter 24 a little bit. First, the universal frailty of human life. Here we find the unavoidable ravages of aging and death, loss and grief right here just in the first two verses with Sarah dying and her age being given 127. And while I think to myself, man, I’m like half of that right now. I mean this is just midlife crisis for her at my age. I haven’t got a clue what it might be like to live that long. Abraham’s going to live to be 175. And as we know in our previous studies in the Book of Genesis, before the time of Abraham and Sarah, people lived much longer. Methuselah, some 969 years or so. The lifespan of human beings is going down as the world is being populated and perhaps as the world is being polluted more and more and as the gene pool continues to become confused and spread and all that sort of thing.

So, it’s just one of those kinds of things that you’re kind of watching nature devolve a little bit and it makes us long for the day when God promises to come along and renew all things. We don’t really like to talk about death much, do we? We Typically avoid it, although we watch it happen in movies, we watch it happen in television shows, we read about it in novels all the time. But how do we navigate the physical, psychological, and emotional turbulence of human vulnerability? After the last year and a half that we’ve had with so many around the world succumbing to this virus we can’t even see with the naked human eye, but we can see the ravages of it across the world. How do we navigate all of that, even if we haven’t been touched by the pandemic, maybe we’ve been touched by our own aging, our own bodies falling apart, or the loss of a loved one to some accident or disease or just aging?

How do we handle all of that, and how does God relate to us in the middle of all of that? I think chapter 23 is really helpful. God isn’t even mentioned in chapter 23, but what we do know is that Abraham is called the friend of God in the Scriptures. That tells us about a real intimacy even though right here the focus is on his relationship with Sarah as he comes in and he mourns and he grieves over her. Then his relationship with the watching world around him, with his neighbors, which they seem to show some level of mutual respect and all that sort of thing. But at the same time, when it gets down to brass tack and business, that’s what it ends up being with Ephron the Hittite. How do we navigate all of that?

Well, I love the way J.A. Medders talks about this. “

“We will regularly experience more than we can deal with, which is why we need God to be our refuge, our shelter, our dwelling place. Lament teaches us to uncork our hearts and pour them out to God in faith. Lamenting is relearning our humanity. Lamenting is admitting that we can’t handle it, knowing we need God’s power, mercy and grace.”
J.A. Medders

And see this is one of the gifts that we read about in the Bible. Biblical faith doesn’t ask us to deny the reality of our vulnerability. We’re not told to deny it, to sweep it under a rug, but we’re told that there is a universal frailty in human life. How foolish we would become if we just tried to deny it all the time. And I know that some people are deniers all the time of any kind of trouble, they’re always trying to live in some kind of a fantasy world.

But as we go through life, denial of our vulnerability makes us the ostrich with his head in the sand. Some try to steel themselves against any kind of suffering or pain. And what really ends up happening there though is, if you try to deny it and just disregard it and ignore it, you become not more human, but less human. The One who designed and created you to bear His image in this world, He knows your name. He knows your pain, your struggles and your shame. He knows you even better than you know yourself. And the only one who can do anything to help you, the only one who has the power to save you is also eager to comfort you and to be your friend. And that’s why I point out that Abraham was called the friend of God. Maybe you have suffered a loss recently yourself like Abraham here with Sarah, or maybe it’s around the corner for some of us and we don’t even know it. Good to not sweep it under the rug and ignore it, but to actually find ourselves asking the big questions of life.

What does the Bible have to say about all of this? What does it have to say about grieving and mourning? And I have to say my wife has written what I think is one of the best books on the subject called Finding Your Way Through Grief.

In it, she says, “God has been attentive to my mourning…” And she wrote this book not too long after her own mother, sweet Anne, passed away. “…God has been attentive to my mourning. He has been ever close, close enough to catch my tears in a bottle as they fall from my eyes…” She says, “…I wonder if perhaps the bottle of my tears might sit on the shelf next to the tears Jesus wept.”
Kim Thomas, Finding Your Way Through Grief

And a great reminder there of what happened in John chapter 11 recorded in our New Testament when the friend of Jesus named Lazarus, when he had died, Jesus delayed as he was told that Lazarus was sick and he might die, He delayed.

And then He shows up knowing full well Himself, clearly, that Lazarus would be dead when He gets there. And he weeps, we’re told, it’s the shortest verse in the entire Bible. Jesus wept. What did He weep for? He knew what He was going to do. He knew He was going to raise him from the dead again or resuscitate him, if you will. And Lazarus was dead, dead. There is no doubt about it. Those folks knew what it looked like for a body, a human person, to be dead way more than we do in our own day and time, because for them it was right there in their living room, very real. And so there goes Jesus and He weeps. Why? Because it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. And He intends to do something about it at the end of time. And so, we look forward to reading about that.

Well, the second thing I see here, not only is there a universality to human frailty, but the resident alien status of believers in this world. And Abraham admits that he’s a stranger and a sojourner among these Hittites. They didn’t worship his God, he didn’t worship their gods. They were not his family or his people, yet he showed respect. He bowed before them. We were told in verse seven and verse 12, Abraham exercised civility and decorum in his dealings with the Hittites, even in these negotiations for the cave and for the opportunity to bury his dead. The only thing Abe demanded was to pay full price and he didn’t renegotiate once Ephron set the price. Now that doesn’t mean that when you buy the next car, whatever it is, that you’re not allowed to negotiate. That’s not the point. The point here is that Abraham knew he was a sojourner, that he was a stranger in the land, and he wanted to behave with them in such a way that brought glory to God.

At the same time, he would never find himself beholden to someone who might try to get him to turn away from Yahweh, to turn away from his God. Os Guinness talks a little bit about some of this in his book, The Last Christian on Earth, he says,

“The core challenge to the Western Church can be expressed in three words, ‘integrity’, ‘credibility’, and ‘civility’, though the greatest of these is integrity. In relation to Jesus Christ our Lord, we must regain the integrity of our faith;…”

Amen.

“…In relation to educated outsiders, we must regain the credibility of our faith; and in relation to people of other faiths, we must regain the civility of our faith…”

How true, Os. Thank you for saying this.

“…This is the sum of our challenge to be utterly faithful to our Lord while at the same time utterly and properly engaged in life in this astonishing modern world.”
Os Guinness, The Last Christian on Earth: Uncover the Enemy’s Plot to Undermine the Church

And I think he said it so beautifully, right there. We’re resident aliens in the world in which we live, but we’ve got a witness and a testimony that needs to be preserved in this world, especially in a day and time when Christians and evangelicals especially, and that simply means people who believe in the good news, when evangelicals are the ones that are being marginalized. And of course, yes, some of them, and some of us, are acting weird and strange and mean-spirited and all of that. But that doesn’t mean we’re all that way at all. And I would quickly say, those folks don’t speak for me. Those folks don’t speak for Jesus, even, they don’t speak for the Christian faith. But we should, like Abraham, realize that we’re strangers and sojourners in a land and we should represent our God with integrity, with credibility and with civility.

Thirdly, notice to the significant symbol of a tomb. Instead of burying Sarah back in Beersheba, this symbol of death, this tomb was also a symbol of the first bit of land that Abraham came to own in the promised land. Faith in the God of the Bible ends up being a very forward-looking faith, doesn’t it? Yeah. The tomb also pointed to the promised seed of Abraham, God’s Messiah, who would be placed in another tomb only to burst forth from it three days later. Sarah was the first one in this tomb. Abraham will be the second one in about 38 years’ time from what we read right here in chapter 23. Then later still would come Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, and finally, Joseph’s bones will be brought back from Egypt to be buried here with his family. Notice the rich beauty of the biblical symbolism here, the promise was from God to Abraham, was for a place and a progeny, a promised land and a people living in that land.

While Abraham did not fully realize that, he got a down payment, a deposit if you will, when he got this cave and his family began to join him being buried in this cave. We see the whole thing foreshadowing what happens to this other tomb a couple of thousand years later, near Jerusalem, where Jesus will burst forth from the tomb that He was buried in by the power of God to fill us with the hope of heaven and the hope of resurrection. John Stott in The Cross of Christ says,

“Jesus is the resurrection of believers who die and the life of believers who live. His promise to the former is you will live, meaning not just that you will survive, but that you will be resurrected. His promise to the latter is you will never die, meaning not that you will escape death, but that death will prove to be a trivial episode, a transition to fullness of life.”
John Stott, The Cross of Christ

And I love that idea. I’ve heard it said so many times by different people that we will become more fully alive when we’re actually in the presence of the Lord. I can’t imagine what that will be like. The New Testament hints at it over and over again, and it is just something that we’re supposed to look forward to in ways that our imagination unfortunately can’t quite grasp. But here’s what I do know: Genesis ends with a full tomb, lots of bodies in it, but the gospels end with an empty tomb and, oh hallelujah, the Bible ends with every tomb emptied out. You see that in the book of Revelation, don’t you?

Getting back to our text, I think we’ve got to at least whet our appetites for what’s going to come in chapters 24 and following. Abraham was old, advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. Most of the commentators think a few years have passed here, so Abraham might be around 140. Isaac, perhaps 40 years of age. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household who had charge of all that he had owned, this is probably Eliezer that we learned about in chapter 15. “Please place your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live. But you shall go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife from my son Isaac.”

This, of course, sounds strange to us, putting your hand under the thigh of someone and making a promise. But this is an ancient practice. It’s like a solemn vow that you understand what’s going on as you place your hand near the reproductive organs of a human person. And you’re saying, I’m very serious. I’m paying attention. Really this is serious. And I get what you’re saying, right? And the servant said to him, “Suppose the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. Should I take your son back to the land from where you came?” In other words, Eliezer isn’t sure that he can talk the woman, whoever the woman is, that he might find in Abraham’s land to come back.

Maybe I should take Isaac with me. And Abraham said to him, “Beware, lest you take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth and who spoke to me and who swore to me saying, ‘To your descendants, I will give this land.’ He will send his angel before you and you will take a wife from my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this, my oath, only do not take my son back there.” That’s a deal-breaker, Abraham says, and he even gives the servant instructions in case it doesn’t work out. And this is again, just a sign of a well-lived life: walking with the Lord, communing with the Lord, prayer, in faith believing, but at the same time understanding that we sometimes get it wrong, don’t we?

So, he tells Eliezer, this is what you do. If it doesn’t work out the way I’m telling you, here’s what you’re supposed to do. If she’s not willing to come back with you, then don’t take my son back there. “So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter. Then the servant took 10 camels from the camels of his master and set out with a variety of good things of his masters in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia and to the city of Nahor.” You remember that name Nahor from the last chapter. Nahor is the brother of Abraham, right? And he made the camels kneel down outside the city to the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water.

And this is amazing because this is 10 camels. This is not 10 little sheep. It’s not 10 little goats, it’s not 10 little dogs like Chihuahuas or whatever; this is 10 camels. They can put some water away. This is like 10 SUVs pulling in and circling around the well in the center of town and they’re just going to stop there. And it’s going to be at the time when women go up to draw water, which would be a custom from their time. And he says, the guy, Eliezer looks at the Lord, looks up to heaven, prays, “Oh Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today. Show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I’m standing by the spring and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now, may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink’ and who answers ‘Drink and I will water your camels also,’ may she be the one whom thou has appointed for thy servant Isaac. And by this I shall know that thou hast shown lovingkindness to my master.’ And it came about before he had finished speaking…” Dot dot dot.

Okay, so you read ahead. This is just an amazing chapter. If you’ve ever had the question, How do I know what God’s will is? How can I discern God’s will? we’ve got some pointers here in chapter 24. This is going to be very helpful for us next week. I hope you’ll plan to come and join us as we find the way that Abraham and his servant, who’s been with him for a long, long time, Eliezer, find the way and they seek the Lord’s will as it relates to finding a wife for Isaac. It’s just a beautiful; it ends like a slow motion movie scene. It’s just powerful, and I hope you’ll join us for all of that.

What are we talking about when we talk about this God of the Bible and the One who is so faithful to us, even as we are strangers and sojourners living in a world that, to some degree, has turned its back on God and is in pursuit of everything that is not God? It is not quite friendly to our faith at all. As I say, the ancient timeless truths of Scripture are so helpful for us in this regard. One of the reasons I love studying the Old Testament. Looking through the New Testament back at the Old Testament for just a few minutes, I want to read from 1st Peter to you. See how this connects with Genesis.

“Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, this is all around the Mediterranean, [the area that we now call Turkey in our own day and time] to all of the aliens, those who belong to Jesus Christ and who are scattered throughout that region, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood make grace and peace be yours in fullest measure.” I love this and I want to walk in that, and I want you to walk in that too. I want us to walk in it even as we go through the same kinds of things that Abraham has gone through, the fear of losing control, the gut-wrenching loss of his loved one. Even as we go through all those same things, those universal signs, that humanity is frail, we are weak, we need God. And here Peter is praying for all of those who will read his letter, us by extension as well, that we might know the grace and peace of God in fullest measure.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected or kept by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Friends, we’re closer than ever and He is, Jesus himself, the One who was resurrected, the One whose tomb was busted wide open and who intends to empty every tomb at the end of time. He’s the One we can place our hope, our confidence and trust in today.

(Edited for Reading)